Sometimes I get stuck in these rutts of "doing Christianity".  I feel like I'm mindlessly doing "Christian-y" things: be nice to people, open doors for others, say "praise God" when something good happens or tell people I'll pray for them.  But it doesn't take very long until I feel empty or I snap and yell at some poor guy who enters the freeway going 45 miles per hour.  In that moment, when I am angry at a total stranger I think to myself  "Dang, Jesus is not down with that."  The small meltdown then leads to my reassessment of where I am with God, my motives, my selfishness, my hopes and insecurities.  I am always reminded that "Christianity" is not my calling, it's not my purpose, it's not why I wake up in the morning.  Jesus is.  Jesus doesn't rescue my soul while it's in darkness so that I become another follower to another movement; He rescues my soul so I would be His follower, moving where He moves.  In the book of John and I John, the author repeats the word "abide".  The word inferences living with, dwelling and residing with - cohabitating even.  Jesus' desire is not that I would adhere to a body of ideals, opinions and rules that exist outside of me that are imposed on me but that I would live from the inside out - that on the inside of me, I am dwelling with and loving Jesus on the inside so that it begins to affect my outside.  Imitation then comes from abiding - living with.  So this week, I am praying that by dwelling with Jesus internally, I would love like Jesus externally.  May you abide in Him today and live from the inside out.

~Lindsay